Letting Go (Thatch #1)(3)

“There isn’t an answer to that question. Even if there were, it would be different for you, for me, for anyone else who’d ever been in this situation. I get up and keep going because I know I have something to live for, and I know it’s what he would want. I can’t think about how I’ll deal with the next day, I just take each day as it comes. There will always be hard days, Grey, always. We just need to take them with the good days, and keep living.”

“I feel like it’s cruel to his memory to move on,” I admitted softly a few minutes later.

“No one ever said we had to move on, we just need to keep moving.”

I met his gaze and held it as he stood up and turned, holding a hand out to me.

“You ready to move?” he asked, and the meaning in his question was clear.

“No,” I replied, but still held out my hand. Slipping it into his, I let him pull me off the bed, and wrapped my arms around his waist, dropping my head onto his chest.

Jagger folded his arms around me, and brought his head down near mine to speak softly in my ear. “Don’t think about next week, or tomorrow, or even tonight. Just focus on your right now. Right now we have to go to our graduation. Right now Ben would be flipping out because you would be making both of you late.”

I choked out a laugh, and a deep laugh rumbled in his chest.

“And you would tell him . . . ?” His question drifted off, waiting for my response.

“To get over it and bet him twenty bucks that we would still beat you there.”

This time his laugh was fuller, and he rubbed his hands over my back before stepping away from me. “Exactly. Then he would put an extra twenty on it, saying I would show up with fresh charcoal on my hands.”

“And face,” I added.

Jagger rolled his eyes. “That was one time.”

“It was to your mom’s wedding.”

“I didn’t like the guy anyway.” I smiled and his eyes darted over my face before he held his hands up. “No fresh charcoal, and we’ll show up at the same time. So no one wins today.”

I took a deep breath in and out, and nodded my head. “I think I’m ready to move now.”

“All right.” He bent forward and grabbed my cap and gown off the bed before turning to leave the room.

I followed him down the hall and into the living room, pausing in the entryway only long enough to look in the mirror and wipe away the streaked makeup. Once we were in his car, I touched his forearm and waited for him to look over at me.

“Thanks, Jagger. For coming for me, for talking to me—just . . . thank you.” He had no idea how thankful I was for him, and I wouldn’t have known how to explain it if I tried. He was just always there to make things better, always there to help me . . . always there to be everything I needed.

He shook his head slowly once, and his green eyes stayed locked on mine. “Sometimes I need motivation to keep moving too. You don’t need to thank me, just let me know when you have to talk about him, okay?”

“Yeah.” Letting go of his arm, I sat back in the seat and grabbed the long chain that held Ben’s wedding band. Taking comfort in the feel of it in my palm, and the knowledge that he would be proud of Jagger and me right now.

I MADE IT through the graduation without crying again, but I never felt like I was happy that it was happening. Even though Jagger had gotten me to a point where I’d been smiling and laughing, the second he left my side when we arrived, I’d fallen back into a state where I was constantly on the verge of crumbling from the grief of what today was. Only to be made worse when Janie had hugged me longer than normal, and then I’d seen my parents and older brother, and none of them had been able to force anything more than a strained smile and “congratulations.”

Lunch afterward didn’t prove to be much easier for anyone. One of my uncles mentioned the date and asked how I was dealing with it, and it had turned into some awkward hush-fest where everyone started kicking the other under the table, and giving them meaningful looks as if to say: Shut the f*ck up! For the next forty-five minutes, no one said a word. Not even a thank-you to the waitress when she’d brought the food.

As much as I hated it, and as much as I loved my family, I was relieved when we’d said our good-byes and my brother had driven me back to my apartment.

“You doing okay, kid?” he asked when he pulled into a parking space.

“Some days.”

“But not today.” It wasn’t a question, he knew.

“Yeah . . . not today,” I said softly.

“Do you want me to come up? I can hang out, crash here for the night, and head back tomorrow.”

“No, it’s fine. I didn’t really sleep last night, so I’ll probably go to bed when I get in there.”

“Grey, it’s four in the afternoon.” He looked at me with either pity or sympathy, neither of which I wanted to see.

“Today was kind of rough, it felt like three smashed into one, and like I said, I didn’t really sleep last night. I’m tired.”

He was silent for a minute before he twisted in his seat to face me. “I’m worried about you.”

I gritted my teeth and took calming breaths before saying, “You shouldn’t be. It’s been two years, I’m getting better.”

“Are you?” he asked on a laugh, but there was no humor in his tone. “I knew today would be hard for you, there’s no way for it not to be. But, shit, how much do you weigh?”